How To Be 60 with Kaye Adams

On this week's episode, we're joined by clinical psychologist and broadcaster Professor Tanya Byron, of The House of Tiny Tearaways fame. She's six months off 60 and celebrating all year with friends she's known since she was 11. Tanya wrote much of her new book, You Are Not a Diagnosis, at her mother's bedside. Her mum lived with Alzheimer's, the long goodbye, and was in Tanya's words a model of courage, acceptance and distress tolerance. When her father died, Tanya wanted a diagnosis of depression so she could be cured. What she had was grief. She tells Kaye and Karen why we rush to pathologise ordinary feelings, why we've lost the why and gone straight to the what, and how getting back to real conversation might help. Plus old-school bingo. You Are Not a Diagnosis is out now from Penguin Life. Get in touch at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we're joined by Louise Doughty, who found a rusted black suitcase at the bottom of her late mum's wardrobe and nearly put it out with the bins. Inside were scores of undated letters charting the secret affair her parents had in 1950s Melton Mowbray, when her dad was a married man and her mum was his boss's secretary. Louise tells us how she pieced them together, why her parents took the story to their graves, and how losing them to Alzheimer's and a sudden heart attack almost hid who they really were. There's also a sister who kept fishing things back out of the bin liners. She was right, as it turns out.Louise also talks about what clearing out a family home teaches you about stuff, why 63 is her favourite decade so far, and admits she may have been the worst-dressed student of the early 80s. Her memoir, On This Spot Fell One Tear of Love, is out now. Whether you've cleared a parent's house or are dreading it, this one stays with you.Get in touch with your thoughts at [email protected] Doughty’s new book, On This Spot Fell One Tear of Love, is available now in hardback, ebook and audiobook. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we're joined by Julia Macklin, who was 15 in 1983 when her baby daughter was taken from her for adoption. Not 1953. 1983. Julia grew up in a devout Catholic family in Manchester and was told, again and again, that letting her baby go was the kindest thing she could do. She talks about the short letters from the Catholic Rescue Society describing another family bonding with her daughter, the grief she was never allowed to have, and the day, 18 years later, when a nun opened a door and said, she's here.Julia is one of the women in Stolen Babies, the BBC documentary now on iPlayer, and it's the first time she has spoken publicly about what happened. She turns 60 this year and says she has finally found her voice, along with a new talent for being stroppy in shops.Get in touch with your thoughts at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we're joined by Francesca Hicks, who saw an easyJet recruitment story on the morning news at 62 and had applied by the time she got home. She'd been sending CVs out for months and getting nowhere. Employers looked at the date of birth, she says, and assumed a grey rinse. Then came the taster day, the five o'clock starts, six exams, slide training and swimming training, and a set of wings her youngest son still tells her he's proud of. Now she can meet 500 new people in a day, has had a passenger of 100 on board, and is planning to keep flying until she's 70 at least. Because she wants to, not because she has to.EasyJet has just reopened its Returnships recruitment for over-50s, with applications from September, so if Francesca's story has you wondering, now is the moment to look.Get in touch with your thoughts at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we're joined by Keith Brymer Jones, who is marrying his partner Marge next year and having the wedding rings made out of clay. He's also planning the whole wedding himself. Marge knows nothing and has said she'll just walk in.Keith is the Great Pottery Throwdown judge known for crying over pots, although he says sad news rarely sets him off. He tells us about the art room that was his refuge from school bullies, the careers teacher who had him down for the gas board, and the day his mother died, a story he tells with the dark humour grief sometimes leaves behind. At 61 he says he's noticed his physical limits for the first time. He bought a Welsh chapel anyway.His new book, Firing Earth, is out in October, and you can see the chapel renovation in Our Welsh Chapel Dream on Channel 4.Get in touch with your thoughts at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Barbara Scully, who did her first stand-up gig at 60, mostly because two women wouldn’t let her out of their flat until she agreed. Now she’s about to tour her second one-woman show. She tells us about hitting rock bottom at 50 in the dole office car park, being mistaken for the children’s chaperone minutes before her own show, and why she has no interest in getting her oestrogen back. As for menopausal brain fog, she’s renamed it an information retrieval slowdown, and her husband has it just as badly. Because no one tells you that being underestimated might be the best thing you’ve got going for you.Barbara’s new show, Because I’m Worth It, tours Ireland from 27 August, with all dates and tickets at barbarascully.com. Her book, Wise Up, is out now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode descriptionOn this week's episode, we're joined by Marisa Peer, who was once asked to do therapy in a jacuzzi in a bikini. She said no, and says it probably cost her work. Marisa is a therapist and bestselling author who started out as a fitness trainer at Jane Fonda's fitness centre in LA, got married for the first time at 51, and reckons she did the whole thing the wrong way round. She tells Kaye and Karen about the male friend she handed a television job to, who went straight to the network and suggested they drop her for someone younger. About the three ages we all have, only one of which is on your birth certificate. And about the small daily trick she uses to stop her brain settling, which starts with the hand you hold your toothbrush in.At 67 she is the happiest she has ever been, and still moving countries every few years — London to America to Dubai, and possibly Portugal next. Marisa's seventh book, Your Mind, Your Rules, is out now.Get in touch with your thoughts at [email protected]'s Book: https://smarturl.it/u3hAnQMarisa's Podcast: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWcHna_Pla5dhel7QP31t1desz_eT3qqx&si=TGXSZY3r6F_qBmLp Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we're joined by Mimi Anderson, who set off into the Canadian Arctic on a fat bike in minus 35 and turned back with frostbite. She didn't start running until she was 36, and only then because somebody told her it would make her legs thinner. It went from there to the Sahara and a world record between Land's End and John o'Groats.She tells us about the day a consultant showed her the hole in her knee, forty days into a run from Los Angeles to New York and on track to break the record. It took her over an hour to decide to stop. Her second book is called Limitless. She isn't pretending the body doesn't change, she just keeps finding something else to do with it.Get in touch with your thoughts at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.